Alexandra Durseneva

Mezzo soprano

Born in Kharkov into an artistic family. She completed her studies at the Kharkov State Pedagogical Institute and the vocal department of the Kharkov Institute of the Arts (T. Veske’s class). Her professional career started at the Kharkov Opera Theatre where she sang the main repertoire. Since 1994, she has been a soloist with the Bolshoi Theatre.

Tours

She tours abroad with the Bolshoi Theatre Opera Company and as guest soloist. In 1999, she made her Royal Opera debut in The Golden Cockerel at Sadler’s Wells. She has appeared at the Bregenz Music Festival (Austria) and at the Arnhem Music Festival (The Netherlands). She has sung in The Demon and The Tsar’s Bride at the Konzerthaus, Vienna. She has appeared in productions by the following, among other, opera houses: Dublin (Innkeeper — Boris Godunov), Leipzig (Podtochina — Shostakovich’s The Nose and Mistress Quickly — Falstaff), Amsterdam (Podtochina), Jena (Mavra by Stravinsky), Teatro Lirico Cagliari, (Fyodor Basmanov — The Oprichnik); she took part in a performance of Janacek’s Glagolitic Mass, in Madrid. Having sung the part of Marta in Iolanta with Danish Opera, she made her La Scala debut in the same role (2002). In 2004, at the Igor Stravinsky Festival in Arnhem (The Netherlands), she took part in a concert performance of the opera Mavra. In 2006, she took part in a performance of Prokofiev’s Betrothal in a Monastery at Glyndebourne Festival. In the same year, she sang An Old Gipsy Woman in a concert performance of Rakhmaninov’s Aleko in Salle Pleyel (Paris, conductor Vladimir Fedoseyev). In 2007, she sang Ulrica (Un ballo in maschera) in West Norwegian Opera.